Between The Lines
by Ookami Mononoke
Summary: Demons. Said to be the embodiment of all that is evil and yet, as Naruto befriends a hottempered hanyou during his years away from Konoha, he learns that things are not always as they appear. NarutoInu Yasha Crossover CHAPTER 1 EDITED, 1,000 WORDS ADDED!


**AN: **Please excuse me, but I've had a very busy, and a very hard couple of months. I've been trying to balance upcoming final exams, make-up school work, robotics, gifted, scholar's bowl, band, switching jobs, work in general, and my sister's hospitalization. It's been rough, and I just don't have the time I used to have to dedicate to writing fanfictions. Truthfully, I've barely gotten online past my e-mail in well over two months. Once summer comes, now that I have my laptop, I'll be at my dad's and able to write. Until then, don't expect too many updates. Although, if I do get lots and lots of reviews, I may be inspired to write more, but don't hold your breath. ;)

**Disclaimer: **_This Ookami owns neither Inu Yasha nor Naruto. Inu Yasha belongs to Takahashi Rumiko, and Naruto is copyright of Kishimoto Masashi. Rawr. Pwnage._

**Chapter One** **(Edited, Beta-ed, and with five new pages!)**

He stood on a cliff overlooking a small village.

Times had changed, and yet, it was not as he had been told it would be. To better a future, he had changed the past and rewritten history, altering the world forevermore. _Five hundred years,_ he mused. Things never did turn out as he had anticipated them, as was proven well with the Shikon no Tama. He was not a full-blooded demon; and yet, neither was he a human. He had long since overcome his hanyou heritage: he was stronger that most demons ever hoped to be, and many times over as powerful as any a human could claim.

But there was still an emptiness in his heart, his soul, reaching down to the depths of his very being.

He wanted something to love, to cherish, to teachm and to shelter.

His hopes had died when Kagome had closed her eyes one last time, barren for all seventy-five years of her life because of his mistake. His stupid mistake.

Inu Yasha shook his head, throwing his bitter thoughts away. His silver-white hair billowed out behind him in its ponytail, reaching down to his hips in length. It wouldn't do to reminisce, he told himself, wishing it true. Kagome wouldn't have wanted it. He knew she didn't hate him for it, and she knew it ate at him constantly when they tried, and failed, many times to conceive a child. _How many?_ He wondered, _Four, no, five miscarriages?_

His golden eyes closed as the pain he felt welled up inside of him, like a dam broken loose. He needed to vent some frustration, to kill something with his claws; to hunt.

●●●

Uzumaki Naruto turned, his face wrinkling into a frown as he waited for his sensei to catch up. He saw the old sannin ambling up a hill behind him, the toad hermit grinning merrily as he approached the thirteen-year-old ninja.

"You weren't waiting long, were you, shrimp?" he asked, a gleeful smile on his face, the red lines decorating his cheeks curving as he grinned. Naruto felt the urge to yell at his perverted excuse of a sensei and quickly quelled it, forcing himself not to make a noise. _Training,_ he thought, _I'm doing this for the Shunshin technique. If I can't even be quiet for one week, I'll never have the patience to learn it!_

Naruto chose, instead, to send a glare that would have had Orochimaru shaking his knees. _Well_, Naruto thought,_ the damn Snake would have probably been laughing so hard his knees were shaking. Bah!_

Glaring at Jiraiya had a similar effect, although Naruto really didn't think Orochimaru could pull off a perverse cackle like Jiraiya could (but then again, Naruto wouldn't put money on it). As Jiraiya calmed down, he looked at Naruto with a grin. _He may just keep this up. But I do hope he gives in and talks soon, though,_ Jiraiya thought, _That means I can drill in him the importance of a __ninja's use for stealth and silence, and berate him about it later._

As much as Jiraiya thought well of his student's power, he wasn't too sure about Naruto's stealth abilities. He was too flashy. A loud voice, an orange set of clothes, and bright yellow hair? It screamed 'poor ninja.' As much as Jiraiya himself liked being flashy, it just didn't do when you need stealth, and a shinobi tended to need it quite a bit. So in order to train him up a bit, Jiraiya was attempting to force Naruto into stealth; or at least, make a deal for it.

The Shunshin seemed to be a good gambling chip; Naruto was very adamant about wanting to learn it. It appeared that anything the Yondaime had done, Naruto wanted to do as well, and do it even better than the Fourth himself did.

Jiraiya's bet with Naruto was that if Naruto didn't speak for one week, Jiraiya would teach him the Shunshin. Doubting Naruto's abilities to pull it off, Jiraiya taunted the boy day and night, poking fun, making jabs, and demeaning him as much as he could. Inside, though, Jiraiya was beginning to become frustrated. They were six days into the agreement, and Naruto still had not made a sound. Not even when Jiraiya carried him along to help him "gather information." Naruto did not scream about perverted old men and their dirty habits, nor did he use the Orioke no Jutsu to alert the women bathing or swimming to his sensei's location.

He simply sat and glowered. For hours on end, if he needed to.

When Jiraiya would finish, the sannin would grin and either say something perverted, taunt Naruto, or both, all the while the boy would merely glare at him with a nasty look.

Jiraiya sighed. _All in good time,_ he thought. They would be staying the night in an upcoming town, and he hoped he would find something to bring Naruto to talking. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't.

●●●

Inu Yasha cursed, watching as a deer leapt away from where he was hidden, noting the sudden shift in the wind. He had been so close, too. It didn't matter, he supposed, extracting himself from the genjutsu he used to hunt the doe; he could just find something else to kill.

His nose twitched, catching a scent that was carried on the wind.

The hanyou's eyes widened.

_Shit!_ he cursed mentally, his upper lip curling into a snarl _A boar youkai! What the fuck is it doing here?_ Jumping from the ground, he sailed high into the forest canopy and ran along the branches of the many trees. The wind whipped against his face and his ponytail splayed behind him, nearly vertical from the speed the hanyou achieved while he ran.

Inu Yasha's triangular dog ears twitched atop his head as the squealing grunts of the boar were carried through the air. His face forming into a snarl, Inu Yasha charged ahead, reaching for the hilt of his sword, Tetsusaiga. His muscles were tensed, bunching as he jumped through the foliage of this forest.

This was going to be hell to defeat.

●●●

Naruto sat in a single hotel room, glowering to himself. Jiraiya, of course, had rented them a room in the red light district of the town, and, being his usual self, had left Naruto to fend for himself for the rest of the day, telling him to "entertain himself." After the Toad Hermit handed the young ninja a small wad of money, he gave the boy a lecherous grin and a wink.

Naruto sighed. Why did he always have to end up with the perverted teachers? It figured. Not that Naruto himself really minded the attributes of the female body, but there was definitely something wrong when that was all a person thought about.

As Naruto sat on a small bed in the room, a peculiar scent wafted up into his nose. His brow furrowed and his nose wrinkled at the smell. It took him only a second to recognize it; the fragrance of something burning.

Glancing around to make sure it wasn't in his room, Naruto paused for a moment before he leapt off of the bed and out of the room. Certain it wasn't emanating form the hotel itself, Naruto wandered outside, looking for the cause. He wandered up the block, and soon found himself caught in the midst of billowing smoke.

The ground shifted, and Naruto fell to the ground as the earth shuddered and quaked. Fearing an Earth-type attack, Naruto's eyes went wide and he ducked behind a building in a nearby alleyway. The motions stopped, and Naruto felt himself release a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

The earth rumbled again, and Naruto heard a strange groan. Pausing momentarily, he realized that it sounded faintly like a musical note, before his brain clicked at the sound.

_Isn't that the same sound that happened when buildings were about to—_ Naruto cursed and shot from the alley back into the street, listening to the sounds of chaos behind him as the building fell into the same alley he had just recently been occupying.

All of that left his mind in an instant as he looked on at the huge _being_ that stood in the center of the town. He remembered faintly seeing a few boars in Wave Country, but they had been merely three feet tall and five feet long.

This... _creature_, was four stories tall, at least, and as wide as a house. Naruto gaped. _This __is a demon?_ He thought. How the hell had he never seena wild one before? They were kind of hard to miss, weren't they?

Naruto saw a mass of white unleashing jutsu on the boar, and as he recognized his sensei, he also noticed another blur of white – _Or __is that silver? _he vaguely wondered – speeding up to the demon.

Naruto rushed towards the scene, his legs carrying him as fast as they could, and he leapt to the building tops, jumping along the roofs in an orange blur. He arrived at the battle site in time to see a man with silver hair and gold eyes standing next to his sensei. The magnificent sword in his hands seemed to be over five feet in length and more than a foot wide.

He wore a black bandana on his head, with his silver hair tied back in a long pony tail that reached his waist. He wore a dark red, maroon almost, vest, unzipped and open over a black long-sleeved shirt. His pants were again black, and bandages were wrapped over his ankles, with dark red nin-sandals. At his hip was a katana sheath, and Naruto found himself wondering how the man fit such a large sword in a sheath that meagre.

He drew up to the two, the stranger next to Jiraiya tensing up briefly at his arrival, and the Toad Hermit himself giving Naruto a slightly irritated 'What took you so long?' look. Naruto shrugged and glanced at the boar, then back to his sensei.

Jiraiya turned back to the youkai in front of them, and said, "We're going to do a double Rasengan, got it?" Naruto grinned an excited, yet almost savage grin as he held out his right hand and began to gather chakra, using his left to guide the currents inside of it.

Inu Yasha scowled at the sannin. "Keh. This is your oh-so-powerful student?" Inu Yasha looked down his nose at the boy, "Feh. Doesn't seem like much to me." Naruto scowled, but continued gathering his chakra for the Rasengan. He'd get the silver-haired man back for that comment later, but right now there were bigger things to deal with.

"Naruto!" Jiraiya barked, and the genin turned to him sharply. "You're going to have to use your other chakra if you want your attack to be effective against this thing."

Naruto sighed and released his nearly complete Rasengan. Closing his eyes, he focused on the small, dark corner in his mind. _Oi! Damn fox! Pay your rent!_ A deep rumbling was heard, a low growl, and chakra poured through his inner coils at a remarkable rate. Naruto's eyes opened to reveal blood-red and slitted pupils. With a snarl, his whisker marks deepened and his canines elongated to form fangs. Using hands with lethally sharp claws, Naruto again channeled his chakra into his right hand and began forming and controlling the Rasengan with his left.

Inu Yasha watched, stunned, as the young boy drew upon youki, a demonic version of chakra, and his features changed to something much more beastly. Inu Yasha shook his head and waited as the two ninjas charged up their Rasengan.

Jiraiya looked over at his student, as Naruto turned to Jiraiya, they locked eyes for a moment, and when Naruto looked forward, Jiraiya shouted, _"Now!"_ The two leapt into motion instantly, running towards the boar youkai at incredible speeds, looking like nothing but blurs to the common eye.

Inu Yasha waited naught but a second before he swooped around behind the youkai and let out a wild battle cry as he unleashed the Kaze no Kizu in the same moment Jiraiya and Naruto hit the demon with the two Rasengan.

The boar roared in pain, then gave a high-pitched squeal as it plummeted to the ground. Inu Yasha landed next to Naruto and Jiraiya, wearing a shit-eating grin as he faced them, his back to the fallen youkai. "Not too bad," he paused for a moment, and then added, "for a couple of humans." His grin grew wider and fiercer than before and he let out a scoff.

Inu Yasha saw Naruto's still-red eyes widen, and he felt his stomach fall in dread. "Move!" Naruto shouted as he shoved Inu Yasha to the side, the impact stronger than he had intended, sending Inu Yasha into the side of a still-standing nearby building. Jiraiya cursed as he reached out for Naruto to grab him as he jumped away, but misjudged the distance and the blond slipped from his grasp.

The boar, nearly shredded but somehow still alive, towered above them again, roaring in pain and agony as it charged, hitting Naruto straight on. Naruto's eyes widened as he felt ribs snap from the force of the impact. He was thrown, tossed by the boar's head, and landed some fifty yards away, his back tearing an indentation in the pavement of the road that, when he finally slowed and stopped, was over one hundred feet in length.

The last thing Naruto saw before he passed out was the demonic boar heading straight for him; and then everything went numb, and the boy fell unconscious. Jiraiya swore as he saw Naruto land, guilt gripping at his stomach and tearing away for having his student slip from his grasp as he jumped. He felt something claw inside of him and snap at the sight of Naruto laying on the ground, body mangled and broken as a demon charged at him.

As he went to move to intercept the youkai, he saw a red, black, and silver blur descend on the giant boar. With a snarl, Inu Yasha cleaved the demon straight in half lengthwise; from the tip of its wet nose to the end of its tail, the demon was cut cleanly in two.

The youkai stopped for a second and let out one final squeal, and then the blood spurted, two halves of the giant boar splitting and falling to the ground. The flesh began to burn and as it fell, and left nothing but its giant bones that clattered to the ground in a wave of sound.

Inu Yasha quickly strode over to where Naruto lay and cursed as he saw the boy's condition. His body was nearly broken; his left arm lay at an odd angle that made Inu Yasha flinch as he looked at it. Blood was leaking slowly from his mouth, and a slight rattle to his breath indicated that Naruto had more than likely punctured one of his lungs with a broken rib. A multitude of cuts, bruises and abrasions covered his body, and his face was beginning to swell slightly.

Quickly, and as gently as he could, the dog hanyou lifted Naruto up into his arms, glancing over as Jiraiya appeared by his side.

"Come on," he said, his voice harsh and scratchy. Jiraiya gritted his teeth and said quickly, "Give him to me. I'm going to have to take him to Konoha. It's a bit of a trip, but the best medic-nin in the world lives there."

Inu Yasha shook his head, and Jiraiya felt the urge to shout, but Inu Yasha sent him a small glare. "No," he said. "He has demonic blood in him. I know someone better suited." Jiraiya snapped his mouth shut and looked at Inu Yasha in surprise. _Demonic blood?_

"Come on," Inu Yasha all but commanded as he sped off, boy in his arms. Jiraiya leapt after him, hot on the hanyou's heels.

_Hang in there_ Inu Yasha directed his thoughts to the broken child he held. _Can't have you dying on me yet__, runt. You saved my life, and I intend to pay off my debt._

●●●

The trio jumped through the branches of the foliage swiftly, leaving only a rustle of leaves as they went. Jiraiya was keeping pace with the hanyou Inu Yasha, the battered body of his student in his arms. Naruto's head bobbed with each leap he took, and the blood from his wounds was beginning to crust over to a brown, flaking covering over the boy's body and down the front of Jiraiya's clothing and on his hands.

They traveled quickly, mindlessly, and soon found themselves in a dense forest at the base of a towering mountain. They broke through the forestry to a clearing, and Inu Yasha held out a hand and motioned for Jiraiya to slow. The Toad Hermit came to a stop by the halting hanyou, and he turned his gaze toward his dog-eared companion.

In front of them was a lake shore, stretching to a circumference of over a mile around the clear blue depths of pure water. A mountain was near, its slopes sweeping upwards less than twenty yards away. Inu Yasha calmly walked up to a large tree -oak, or so it appeared- and, whipping out his sword into it's true form, slammed it up to the hilt into the trunk.

Jiraiya watched in fascination as the tree morphed, and strange markings wove themselves on the bark around the breadth of the trunk. They branched off themselves and interconnected, forming intricate signs that Jiraiya had never before seen in his life. They came together, at the point where the sword was buried, and formed a sort of strange sign. Upon further realization, Jiraiya nearly smacked himself in the head as he realized it was basic kanji.

It read: _Inu_, or dog.

Inu Yasha bit into his thumb quickly, drawing a small droplet of blood and swiping it across the kanji. The kanji glowed red for a moment, and Jiraiya felt a small surge of powerful chakra. The glowing went dormant again, and the tree seemed to groan as, in the middle of the trunk, a hole appeared, stretching wider and wider until it formed a strange sort of door.

Inu Yasha quickly strode through the door, without motioning towards Jiraiya, or even halting in his motion. Jiraiya hurried after his silver-haired companion and student. He found himself in a small tunnel or corridor of sorts, sloping steeply down and dimly lit by small torches placed systematically at every twenty feet on either side.

He took a moment to take in his surroundings and was surprised to find the tunnel was made from wood. Not planks like he would have thought, but by actual, _living_ wood. He saw large leaves budding from the walls themselves trying vainly to absorb what little light was offered from the torches. Vines grew sporadically over the sloped ceiling, winding and turning over each other.

They walked for only a few minutes down the incline, and Jiraiya had to shield his eyes from the sudden barrage of bright lighting that appeared. As his pupils dilated to adjust, his eyebrows raised and his eyes widened noticeably.

Before him lay a small village, hidden in the depths of the earth.

Inu Yasha didn't give him a moment to pause and look at it all, but from what he saw, Jiraiya was amazed. Small, feudal-like huts were strewn about in some systematic order that was beyond him, with shingled roofs, open windows and flaps for doors. There were less than thirty huts altogether, but more than twenty. A small field of rice was growing nearby, and Jiraiya could smell it easily, wrinkling his nose slightly. There were small crops of corn, beans and vegetables growing near it, with fruit trees outlaying them.

Strangely, Jiraiya could not see any inhabitants whatsoever.

Inu Yasha picked up the pace again, and the two of them ran past the village to a small doorway that was cut out of a wall of the earth.

Jiraiya had no time to look around the tunnel as they sped onwards.

Bright lighting came from the end suddenly, and Inu Yasha squinted as it struck his sensitive eyes, while Jiraiya brought up his right arm to shield his.

What the two came upon was something that made Jiraiya's mouth open in unacclaimed surprise.

Before them was a mighty castle, its high towers sweeping upwards, and sturdy battlements looming threateningly over any foe that would face it. There was no moat, yet a large set of heavy wooden doors portrayed an entrance. As Jiraiya and Inu Yasha went on, the dog hanyou strolled up casually to the gates and began to pound incessantly on them.

"Open up in there, ya' lofty bastard!" Inu Yasha shouted as he banged on the doors.

He hit them a few more times, and then, seemingly satisfied, he merely stood and waited, his foot tapping impatiently. After a few moments, a silver head appeared over the top of the battlements above, and then a mighty shouting was heard.

The doors were swung open, and Inu Yasha jumped back in the nick of time to avoid them. A large, _creature_ loomed threateningly, and looked down at Inu Yasha, pleased.

The creature resembled something that appeared to be a cross between a large, white dog, and a human being. The stature was that of a very large man, taller than Jiraiya even, but the features, including the protruding muzzle, large ears atop its head and the solid gleaming white fur that covered its body, were definitely _not._

"Inu Yasha-sama!" the creature rumbled, its low voice making both parties feel the vibrations in the air. It totally and completely ignored Jiraiya. "Thy brother shall be glad to see thee. Thou hast been away for many a year! Nay, 'tis almost one half century since this one hast last seen thee, Inu Yasha-sama. Art thou going to be staying long?"

Inu Yasha scoffed, "Keh. Not likely. I'm just here to get the runt fixed up."

The creature looked down at the bundle of blood that was Naruto, and suddenly became more urgent. "Thou must taketh the child quickly, Inu Yasha-sama! If thou dost not hurry, this one fears for the child's life!"

"Then move!" Inu Yasha growled, his brows furrowed in impatience.

"Aye! Mi'lord!" the creature scurried out of the way, and Inu Yasha charged forwards into the castle.


End file.
